Scott Walker (January 9, 1943 – March 22, 2019), was an American-British singer-songwriter and record producer who resided in England. Walker was known for his emotive voice and his unorthodox stylistic path which took him from being a teen pop icon in the 1960s to an avant-garde musician from the 1990s to his death.
Born in 1943 in Hamilton, Ohio, Scott Walker was known as Scott Engel when he cut obscure records in the late '50s and early '60s in the teen idol vein. He then hooked up with John Maus and Gary Leeds to form the Walker Brothers. They weren't named Walker, they weren't brothers, and they weren't English, but they nevertheless became a part of the British Invasion after moving to the U.K. in 1965. They enjoyed a couple of years of massive success there (and a couple of hits in the U.S.) in a Righteous Brothers vein. As their full-throated lead singer and principal songwriter, Walker was the dominant artistic force in the group, who split in 1967.
The Walker Brothers
While remaining virtually unknown in his homeland, Walker launched a hugely successful solo career in Britain with a unique blend of orchestrated, almost MOR arrangements and idiosyncratic, morose lyrics. At the height of psychedelia, Walker openly looked to crooners like Sinatra, Jack Jones, and Tony Bennett for inspiration, and to Jacques Brel for much of his material. None of those balladeers, however, would have sung about the subjects -- suicidal brooders, plagues, Joseph Stalin -- that populated Walker's songs.
His first four albums hit the Top Ten in the U.K., and his second reached number one in 1968 -- in the midst of the hippie era. By the time of 1969's Scott 4, the singer was writing all of his own material. Although expertly realized, it was a commercial disappointment, and unfortunately discouraged him from relying entirely upon his own material on subsequent releases.
The '70s were a frustrating period for Walker, pocked with increasingly sporadic releases and a largely unsuccessful reunion with his "brothers" in the middle of the decade. His work on the Walkers' final album “No Regrets” in 1978 prompted admiration from David Bowie and Brian Eno. After a long period of hibernation, he emerged in 1984 with the album Climate of Hunter, which drew critical raves for a minimalist, trance-like ambience that showed him keeping abreast of cutting-edge '80s rock trends. A notoriously reclusive figure who was rarely interviewed or even seen in public since his days of stardom, he emerged from hibernation in 1995 with a new album, Tilt.
During the next several years, he contributed to soundtracks (To Have and to Hold, The World Is Not Enough, Pola X) and assisted with recordings by Ute Lemper and Pulp. He didn't release another album until 2006. That year, Walker also contributed the track "Darkness" to Plague Songs for the Margate Exodus project, curated by the British arts organization Artangel. In 2007 Walker released the limited-edition EP And Who Shall Go to the Ball? And What Shall Go to the Ball? Commissioned as a work for ballet by the Candoco Dance Company, it comprised a single piece of instrumental music, 24 minutes in length, performed by the London Sinfonietta and cellist Philip Sheppard.
In November of 2008, the musical theater work Drifting and Tilting: The Songs of Scott Walker was staged at London's Barbican over three evenings. It was comprised of songs from Tilt and The Drift. Walker did not perform, but directed the work from conception to execution including staging, lighting, and orchestra. The vocals were performed by various singers, including Damon Albarn, Dot Allison, and Jarvis Cocker.
In 2009, the album Music Inspired by Scott Walker: 30 Century Man appeared, featuring songs inspired by the film sung by Laurie Anderson and other female Walker devotees. Also in 2009, Walker duetted with British singer Natasha Khan on her Bat for Lashes album Two Suns. In 2012, he released Bish Bosch which was received with generally favourable reviews. He regarded it as the third and final part of the trilogy that began with Tilt and continued on The Drift.
In 2015 Walker composed the score for Brady Corbet's film The Childhood of a Leader; this was followed in 2018 by the score for Corbet's film Vox Lux, also featuring music by Australian singer-songwriter Sia.Richard Hawley told the BBC in 2017 that Walker was “one of the greatest singers of all time”. “You think he’s singing something quite simple,” he said. “You think you can sing along in the bath. But when you actually sit down and analyse what he’s doing, it’s unbelievable. It’s also the timbre of his voice, it’s a very thick, treacly, nasal howl – a beautiful howl. He hits you right in your solar plexus or wherever. Not quite the heart, but somewhere very central to the self. He’s one of the greatest singers of all time.”
Walker died at the age of 76 in London on March 22, 2019. His death was announced three days later by his record company 4AD, which announced cancer as the cause of death.
(Edited
from AllMusic Independent & Wikipedia)